Tag: Inspiration

It has been forever since I last shared anything on the blog. However, now is the time and there is a reason why!

I’ll like to share with you a great event I attended recently. Every year the Junior Achievement – Young Enterprise Alumni is gathering all its national coordinators, for what is known as the National Coordinators meeting, or NCM.

Ice-Breaking JA-YE NCM OSLO 2013

This year’s event was hosted by the Norwegian Alumni in Oslo, Norway and a total of 17 different nations were represented. The purpose of the event was to enrich collaboration across borders and to maintain an international network in-between the national networks. The fact is that collaboration across boarders might be a challenge due to cultural differences. However, many of the challenges faced on a national level is often shared by sister groups in other countries and everyone will actually benefit from sharing these experiences and try and solve the issues together.

The European Board and the Norwegian Team

A big thanks goes to the Norwegian Team, who put together an inspirational, well organised and all over successful, fun and amazing event. Not just was the choice of lectures, sightseeing, dining and sleep of the highest standards. The logistics of the entire event was also managed to perfection and participants from all over Europe could enjoy Oslo and its beauty to its fullest.

I just watched a show on the popular TV channel Nation Geographic, which inspired me to do this article. The show was about a real life story of four American guys, making the worst decision of their lives, when they get involved in drug trafficking. The four guys are stopped in the airport in Brazil and are sent to prison. The sentence was originally 25 years, but due to a bribe of the judge the four guys’ only end up serving 4½ year in prison. One quote said by one of the boys serving was: “freedom is priceless”.

With that sentence: “freedom is priceless” there is no doubt that he is absolutely right, however the most of us actually don’t care or at least never give it a thought, probably because we take our freedom for granted. It is really hard to explain the feeling I was left with when watching the show, but it made me wonder if we as human beings of the free world, are appreciating the freedom our ant sisters have been fighting for. There is an old saying sounding something like: “You only know what you got, till it is gone” and I guess that was what those four guys realized in the second they were put behind bars.

I would like to turn this true real life story in another direction, to a topic that has had my attention for a while: “Time”! In the article about Georg Soerensen I was as well putting emphasis on the subject time, because time is a limited resource and we do only have a certain amount of hours on this planet. The question is if we get the best out of it?

Looking at this problem through the eyes of an entrepreneur, the greatest wish would be to have an extra hour in a day and since this probably is too great a challenge for even the best entrepreneur, the solution might be found elsewhere. An interesting approach would be to look at reducing the time spend on sleeping. I am quite sure that if anybody could come up with an innovation that could reduce the need for sleep, he or she could make a fortune just on the patent alone. However there might be another approach to the problem.

Because what is it worth to get an extra hour awake every day, if it is not an affective hour? I know from myself that I spend too much time everyday doing stuff that does not in any direct way create any kind of value for me. I don’t learn anything from it, I do not extend my network, I do not make money, and in general I spend too many hours wasting my precious time. It takes self-acknowledgement to reach this conclusion, but only by being aware of it, I can work on it and become better.

Here I would like to draw the connection to the four guys from the TV show. They learned it the hard way, how precious life is and especially how much freedom and the opportunity to do whatever you want to should be appreciated. You never know what tomorrow will bring and you never know which day is your last.

The conclusion must be that time shall and must be lived RIGHT NOW, because you never know if tomorrow will be your last. So do not waste your time doing things that does not create value in your life and remember to enjoy every single minute of your freedom. Do never take anything for granted.

This article is inspired of the book “Rich Dad – Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki.”

Rich Dad – Poor Dad

Money is often mentioned as the root of all evil. Such a statement is often caused by money problems. Rich people would say that a lack of money is the root of all evil. Poor people often forbid the subject of money to be discussed at the dinner table, because of embarrassment connected to the current situation. At this point is committed a fundamental mistake. When you forbid discussing the subject of money, you are putting your head to sleep. You do not force you brain to work and figure out a solution for the matter of a bad financial situation.

When you walk down the street and see your colleague driving his new Porsche, it would be normal to desire what he got. But often is the desire killed by the mindset: “I can’t afford it.” Instead of thinking I can’t afford it, the rich man would think: “How can I afford it?” It is the same as the difference between the man who goes to the gym every day, and the man who sits at home watching TV. The man who goes to the gym get fit, the man in front of the TV get fat. It is very important to exercise your brain, and it might mean the difference between rich and poor.

To support my words I would like to retell a little story from the childhood of Robert Kiyosaki.

At the age of 9 Robert Kioyosaki and his friend Mike is asking Mike’s dad how to become rich. Mike’s dad is agreeing to teach them, but not in the classical school way. The two boys are offered a job for 10 cent an hour, and the terms are: take it or leave it. After have been working 3 hours every Saturday for 3 weeks, it becomes enough for Robert. He thinks he is underpaid and he is confronting Mike’s dad. Mike’s dad is glad to see his reaction, but he is having a hard time convincing Robert that he as the employer is not the problem, but that Robert is. Robert walks away from the meeting, now working for free. Working for free is not especially exciting and Robert and Mike are getting their eyes open for opportunities. After been working for some weeks Robert and Mike notice that every week the manager of the store is ripping of the front page of all the comic books. The distributer is getting the front page, and the comic books are thrown out. Robert and Mike sees an opportunity and make a deal with the manager that they get the old comic books, but they have to promise that they won’t sell them. The two boys opens a library and tax 10 cent each kid for reading all the comic books they can in the opening hour. They are hiring Mike’s sister to run the business. And they are making much more money that they would ever earn working for Mikes dad.

Do not work for money, let the money work for you. That is the main message of this article. Another important notification is that learning is much more valuable than profit. Tina Seeling, lector of Stanford University is saying: “There is a million dollar opportunity in every room you enter.” You just need to open your eyes and see it.